Subscribe

Friday, September 03, 2010

Simply Supper

Continuing this week's food theme...

Jennifer Chandler, who is probably one of the nicest people you could ever meet, has a new cookbook out called Simply Suppers. She asked if I'd like a review copy and I said heck yeah! Its arrival coincided with my realization that Warren will not be home in time to cook dinner until he is done with student teaching. I was also starting to feel guilty about the number of evenings I suggested the monkeys eat Ramen. I flipped through the book and immediately knew what I wanted to make: chicken tenders breaded in potato chips! "The monkeys will LOVE this," I said to myself. I also decided to use of some of our CSA goodies and make Jennifer's garlic mashed potatoes and glazed carrots.

Cooking this meal made me really appreciate Warren. I am so out of practice cooking from scratch, I forgot how hard it is! Even with simple recipes like Jennifer's I am kind of a mess. Also I'm lazy. And really tired when I get home.

As you can see from the pictures, I managed to dredge and coat the chicken, but I solicited Warren's help for the chicken frying (they fry for 3 minutes on each side and then go in the oven). When I was in sixth grade, I literally burned down our house--okay the kitchen and dining room--frying French fries, and I am a little scarred. I was also too lazy to peel the potatoes, but the skin has the vitamins anyway, right? I also omitted the garlic because Jennifer said I could. The carrots were SO good. Adding sugar and butter to carrots = genius.

Did I mention this is not a low calorie meal? Not even if you don't eat half the bag of chips before breading a single chicken tender like I did.

The meal took about an hour and a half, but I didn't time things exactly right. I started the chicken first, which meant the oven was on for way longer than necessary. I thought the potatoes would take much longer than they did and the carrots took way longer than I thought.

I'm going to cook this meal again, but smarter. Then I'm going to try out Jennifer's cheeseburger pie!

Simply Suppers is available around town and Jennifer has a few book signings (listed below). Go say hi and buy a book!